Panel named for £250,000 Wolfson prize

THE PANEL of top European economists who will judge the £250,000 Wolfson Prize entries was unveiled today.
The prize, sponsored by Next chief executive Lord Simon Wolfson (pictured, right), will award a quarter of a million pounds to the economist who offers the best feasible plan that a country could follow if it wanted to leave the Eurozone.

Announced last month, the prize has already received more than 600 expressions of interest from universities, ex-governmental advisers and economic institutions.

“The Eurozone crisis is the biggest threat to global economic stability since the Second World War,” he said.

“European leaders may now be coming to appreciate the scale of the Eurozone crisis, but this prize is a private sector initiative to reinforce the response of policy makers in the decisions that will have to be made to get Europe out of the mess.”

Wolfson explained that the scale of the Eurozone crisis meant a major private sector incentive was needed to attract the highest calibre of economists to tackle the question.

DEREK SCOTT | VESTRA WEALTH
An adviser to Tony Blair from 1997 to 2003, Scott is now a visiting professor at Cass Business School, an economic adviser to Vestra Wealth and author of “Off Whitehall,” on the economics of EMU.

JEAN JACQUES ROSA |SCIENCES PO
Rosa is an economist and professor at Sciences Po in Paris. A former member of then-French PM Lionel Jospin’s economic council in the 1990s, he is now a member of the America Economic Association.

MANFRED NEUMANN | UNI OF BONN
Professor Neumann works at both the Deutsche Bundesbank and the University of Bonn. He co-founded the international Konstanz Seminar on Monetary Theory and Monetary Policy.

CHARLES GOODHART | LSE
Goodhart is the emeritus professor of banking and finance with the financial markets group at the London School of Economics. From 1997 to 2000 he was a member of the Bank of England’s MPC.

FRANCESCO GIAVAZZI|UNI BOCCONI
Professor of economics at Bocconi University in Milan, Giavazzi was a member of the group of economic advisers to the President of the European Commission from 2000 to 2010.